The Interview Sales Pitch Gone Wrong

By Chris Delaney

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Successful interviewees often have a prepared sales pitch. Time and again the career professional will predict the interview questions for their particular job sector, using their vast experience and job insight as a template.

For each predicted interview question, the job searcher will create an elevator style pitch interview answer, that explains a key success or unique selling point. Often this strategy works with great success but from time to time this process fails leaving the stunned interviewee speechless.

The savvy interviewee understands that companies value different criteria from your past employers and to secure job offers in all job interviews you need to uncover what the interviewer desires in an employee and offer it to them on a golden plate.

Ask, Listen, Repeat.

What you may deem important or valuable in your chosen profession isn’t always the same as what the interviewer believes is important. Below are 3 ways to uncover what the employer desires during the interview itself. With this insight you can tweak your prepared answers, explaining how you meet their desired criteria.

The system works by asking the employer what they desire, listening for the desired criteria before explaining (repeating) how you exceed this criteria during the interview answer.

The Employers Sale Pitch

Often the interview starts with the employer explaining the company aims and objects, the company history and the reason this position has become available. This is how interviewers encourage interviewees with multiple job offers to take the offered available position – in essence this is the employers sale pitch.

Ask the employer discusses the role, ask the interviewer “what type of employee they are looking for?” The answer given will be packed with desired criteria, which you can implement throughout the job interview. “I need a manager who can A, B and C”

Motivational Language

People are motivated into action through two key elements. People are either problem solvers or goal orientated.Problem solvers easily spot problems, mistakes and often see the glass as halve full. Solving problems gets them excited and as an interviewer they often like to recruit people with the same focus.

Goal orientated employers are the opposite of problem solvers, they view the world as a set of challenges, goals to be achieved. As with the problem solvers, employers who are goal orientated want their team to be motivated as they are - outcome focused.

The interviewer will give away their motivational focus throughout the job interview by the language they use when asking questions. Again you need to ask questions, listen to the words the interviewer uses and repeat these words.

A question to ask the interviewer (when appropriate during the job interview) is “if you offer me the position what you want me to achieve in the first 6 months?” If all else fails you can ask the question at the interview end when the employer ask “do you have any questions for me?”

This question uncovers the employers current frustrations “we need to implement X” (often this is the key reason why the employer is recruiting) and gives you an insight into the employers motivational language. With this knowledge you can explain how you would achieve X, relating to pass success with similar frustrations.

Stay Out Of Your Own Head

All too often interviewees stay in their own head during the job interview, thinking about the criteria they deem important and trying to second guess what the employer wants to hear. Instead you need to ask leading questions to uncover what it is the interviewer deems important and then explain how you have this skill in abundance.

Chris Delaney is an interview coach and the author of the 73 Rules for Influencing the Interview. Contact him on G+